


Lucid Dreams (for The Sleeping Prince), or: The Price

by josephina_x



Series: The one where Clark is a god(?!) [2]
Category: Smallville
Genre: (?), (SERIOUSLY), (like whoa), (or the next best thing to it), (why not?), (yes both of them), Altered Mental States, Because I can, Crack, Crack Treated (Mostly) Seriously, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreams vs. Reality, Episode: s07e20 Arctic, Gen, Insanity, Major character death - Freeform, Mind Control, Nonlinear Time, Post-Episode: s01e01 Pilot, The Fortress of Solitude, The Orb - Freeform, WARNING: POSSIBLY TRIGGERING MATERIAL, crackity-crack-crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10985412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: Clark is pretty sure they’re both awake. --And that's agoodthing ...right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Lucid Dreams (for The Sleeping Prince), or: The Price  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark+Lex  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: general for seasons 1-7  
> Word count: ???+  
> Summary: Clark is pretty sure they’re both awake. --And that's a _good_ thing ...right?  
>  Warnings: Un-beta'd.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: Second in the series, “The one where Clark is a god(?!)” Comes after “The Red King.”
> 
> No, I’m not dead (...yet...), just super-busy. Thought I should probably post at least part of this, since it’s getting almost as long as the first fic, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, and I haven’t had to make huge edits to it recently in the last few passes. (...Yay fic? ^_^ )

~*~*~*~*~*~

It is nighttime, and Clark is floating over his own shoulder.

No, really. He’s asleep -- _not_ awake -- and he knows it -- he’s _always_ known the difference, unlike some _other_ people he could name... -- and he’s floating over his own shoulder as he, Clark Kent (-- another himself --), stands there on the roof of the gymnasium and looks down on the Homecoming Dance from above.

Clark follows his other self’s gaze, and looks down.

He sees his friends. He sees Lana. He sees Whitney, and everybody else.

Everybody is still alive, and they all look happy.

They’re dancing, grinning, having fun.

The dance is almost over. Clark doesn’t want to see this…

...but he can’t look away. He braces himself.

And nothing happens.

The last song finishes up. Everybody is fine.

This isn’t what happened.

He floats down a little lower, and watches himself watch Lana, and the _way_ he’s watching her... It’s like he -- this other him -- is wishing he hadn’t missed that one dance that she’d promised to save for him. As if that’s the worst thing that could have happened -- that _had_ happened -- that night.

“I wonder if you ran here instead,” he tells himself -- or tries to, except he can’t hear himself as he says it -- there’s no sound when he talks, and that startles him.

It startles him so much he wakes up.

...He’s floating three feet above his bed.

He crashes.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark does not tell his parents.

He doesn’t tell his parents about what happened. Not the floating. (He broke physics! What the heck?!?) Not the crash afterwards. (Well, okay, he’ll probably have to say something about his bed eventually, since he broke all four legposts when he hit. His dad doesn’t always notice when he sneaks stuff in and out of the house so he can fix things he’s accidentally broken, but his mom can somehow always tell.) --But he _especially_ does not tell his parents about the dream.

Clark figures that the dream was some kind of stress dream. It had to be, right? Especially after everything that had happened. And after everything Lex had been saying about sleeping and dreams and dreaming different realities... well, it’d be more weird if he _hadn’t_ had weird dreams after all that, instead of his usual normal ones, right?

He also didn’t want to get crap from his dad about it, either. It wasn’t really Lex’s fault that Lex himself had had weird dreams; they wouldn't have even known about it if Lex hadn't told them. It was even less Lex’s fault that Clark had had weird dreams later -- it wasn't like Lex could control what dreams _Clark_ had, right? Not any more than Clark could be blamed for dreaming it himself.

People couldn’t control their _dreams_ \-- not usually. Clark had read about lucid dreaming, but he couldn’t usually change anything and everything in his dreams when he was asleep, even though he knew he was dreaming. (Not that he usually tried to. He wasn’t sure if floating-without-thinking-about-it counted as a lucid dreaming thing -- but it _was_ a normal thing for people, right?)

(...Well, floating in _dreams_ was, anyway. And he hadn't even been trying to do it.)

But yeah. If he told his dad about the _real_ floating he'd done, then he’d probably end up accidentally saying something about the dream, too, and then he’d find himself having to _explain_ the dream, too, and then his dad would blame Lex Luthor for it. (Which would be stupid.) And then his dad would use it as an excuse to try and tell him not to see Lex anymore. (Which would be even more stupid.) And then Clark would have to tell his mom about his dad being stupid about it, to try and get around it without getting in huge amounts of trouble. And then his parents would have another argument over Lex being around or not, and… just, no. He wasn’t doing that.

So instead, Clark told Lex.

(In retrospect, it was probably both the best and worst thing he could have done.)

~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

~*~*~*~*~*~

“What do you mean?” Lex asked with a slight frown. He turned to face Clark in the library of the mansion, closing the book he’d been holding.

“How did you know what you were thinking in your dream?” Clark repeated. “The one with both of us in it?” That was the one thing that had seemed the most strange of all. He hadn’t been able to do that in his own dream the night before. So how had Lex done it?

"I was myself as I dreamed--” Lex frowned. “As I _was being_ dreamed by you, rather,” Lex corrected himself, and it made Clark feel a little better to know that Lex was having at least some trouble trying to remember, and keep straight, that weird theory of his about Clark being a sleeping god. Because it’d be easier for Clark to convince him he was wrong, if Lex already had trouble completely believing it himself, right?

Lex continued on, oblivious: "So, being myself, why _wouldn't_ I know what I was thinking at the time?”

"Wait, you were _both_ of you?” Clark asked incredulously.

“No, there was only me. --One of me, that is. I was wholly myself.” Lex's eyebrows drew down, then up again, and he leaned forward a little bit, towards Clark. "You had a prophetic dream and there was a second 'you'?” It wasn't really a question, and his eyes had an odd gleam to them now. "What did your other-self say to you?”

Clark resisted the urge to groan, _barely_. --How had Lex figured him out? He hadn’t even known him for a day yet, and Lex was already as good at it as his parents!

“Were you able to identify which part of your fragmented self was trying to communicate with you?” Lex pressed him. “Knowing that, or what he wanted, might help to determine whether it was a more conscious or subconscious part of your mind, and how useful working together with it might be,” he mused.

“It wasn’t like that!” Clark nearly shouted out, throwing up his arms. At Lex’s curious look -- Lex just tilted his head and _waited patiently_ at him… which was somehow worse than if he’d kept poking at him with more questions, even if it was a lot quieter... -- Clark slowly calmed down. “I mean, this other me didn’t even seem to know that I was there, floating right next to him,” he said, pretty much giving up on keeping anything to himself. Besides, it wasn’t like Lex didn’t know already, right? “And it _wasn’t_ prophetic; it was two nights ago, all over again.” He frowned. “Only it looked like stuff happened differently.”

“Interesting,” said Lex. “Did you try to communicate?”

Clark stared at him. “You think _that_ is more important that me floating?”

“You’re carproof,” Lex waved off, “I can’t see the ability to float next to someone being that far out of scope for a sleeping alien god,” lex told him, “Especially not when you’re in the process of exercising a greater subset of your dream-jumping powers in a different dreamscape entirely. With the odd fragmentation you apparently have going on,” Lex gave him a sideways look, “It would make sense that you’d not be tethered to the same restrictions elsewhere that you’ve placed upon yourself here.” Then he paused. “How realistic was this dream, exactly?”

“I can tell when I’m asleep,” Clark reminded him.

“Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question,” Lex pointed out. “I should think that the ability to instinctively tell the difference between dreams would be essential for a being such as you. --Was this dream you had last night more, or less, real-seeming than the other dreams you usually have? ...when you feel yourself to be ‘asleep’ relative to this dream-reality we are both existing in right now?” Lex belatedly added at the end, apparently in partial deference to Clark’s feelings on the matter.

Clark hesitated. “It did seem a little different,” he admitted. “I usually dream things as me. But I’m not usually me and looking at _another_ me,” he tried to explain.

“And when you tried to communicate?” Lex asked, straightening. As if he knew for-certain that Clark would and had tried to do just that, and, seriously, _who_ exactly was supposed to be the alien god here, with weird mind powers and stuff? --Not Clark, that was for sure.

Clark sighed. “I woke up. The other me didn’t hear me -- _I_ couldn’t even hear me.”

Lex thought about this.

“Would you like me to teach you sign language?” Lex asked, in perfectly serious tones.

Clark laughed.

Lex tilted his head at Clark again, but Clark couldn’t help it. ...Well, at least Lex didn't look angry or offended or anything. Maybe a little puzzled. Clark watched Lex slide his hands into his pants pockets, as Clark got control of his laughter and calmed down.

“I don’t think he saw me,” Clark told Lex. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to try and explain why Lex being so straightforward and honestly trying to be helpful just made him want to laugh, but he did feel better now, weirdly enough. “--I mean, I don’t think he _could_ see me,” Clark elaborated before Lex could ask the obvious question. “I was right there, and he should’ve seen me, if he could have.”

“But he didn’t,” Lex said, frowning slightly, as he tilted his head at Clark again.

“He didn’t,” Clark confirmed.

“Hm.”

Clark waited, as Lex thought.

“...Curiouser and curiouser,” Lex murmured under his breath, and then blinked and looked up at Clark almost sheepishly.

Clark grinned. He couldn’t really help that either.

“Alice on the brain?” Clark asked.

“Alice on the brain,” Lex admitted ruefully, running a hand over his scalp.

“It’s okay,” Clark said, sitting down on the couch. He kind of understood it, really. He watched Lex let out a breath and sit down next to him. “It sort of makes sense, um, even if it kind of doesn’t. Isn’t.” Clark pulled a face, not entirely sure what he was trying to say.

“...Well, at least you’re a bit more relaxed, now?” Lex said, with a sideways look and a small smirk, that looked more like a half-hidden smile.

“I, um.” Clark had to puzzle that one out for a bit. He half-watched Lex relax back into the couch, while watching Clark. “I guess… yeah?” He did feel better than he had before, even if he wasn’t exactly sure _why_. ...Or maybe he did. It was nice having someone to talk to. Someone who wasn’t his parents.

Lex smiled at him, and Clark slowly smiled back. He didn’t feel anxious about Lex knowing, exactly, it was just that it was so new. _Everything_ was.

“I didn’t know I was an alien, you know,” Clark told him. “Not until after the car crash.”

Lex blinked at him. “...You weren’t breaking the laws of physics before you met me?”

“What?” Clark said, stunned. “--How did you know about me floating above the bed?” he blurted out, because that was _insane!_ Had Lex had another prophetic dream, or something? _How had he known?!_

...Then Clark realized that, from the way Lex blinked at him, and got a slight frown of puzzlement, that maybe he _hadn’t_.

“Above the--?” Lex began almost under his breath, then stopped short for a moment. “...I was referring to the superhuman speed and strength that you have in this reality,” Lex said more slowly, staring at Clark. He started to say something else, then paused again, looking a bit like a deer caught in headlights for a moment. “--Hitting you with my car had next to no effect, didn’t it?” Lex asked him suddenly.

“Knocked the wind out of me and took me over the railing,” Clark said, wrapping his arms around himself, while trying not to wince as he mentally kicked himself. Because...

“All right,” Lex said. “I’m glad you’re really all right,” he added, sounding a little relieved, and it was about this point that Clark realized that maybe Lex hadn’t been completely sure about that before.

“Me, too,” Clark said, because what else _could_ he say? He wasn’t exactly glad that he was an alien, or to find out that his parents had lied to him about it for years, but it wasn’t like he wished he was dead, exactly.

Lex nodded. “ _Did_ you have your abilities before we met? In this dream-reality?” Lex asked him. “Or did you only unlock them at the time that we met here?”

“I’ve been pretty strong and fast for awhile now,” Clark admitted. “And I’ve gotten stronger and stuff every couple months since I was really little, every time I have a growth spurt. I didn’t know about being invulnerable, or whatever, though.” Not until Lex had hit him.

“Carproof,” Lex said almost absently. “You’re not invulnerable; between that meteor rock necklace, and the Orb and that laser…” Lex trailed off.

He was frowning to himself, staring down at his hands. Clark waited.

“Okay,” Lex said, after pausing for a moment. “Okay,” he repeated, staring off into the distance over Clark’s shoulder, “That’s…” He blinked again. “...wait…” Then Lex seemed to shake himself abruptly and looked back at Clark. “Clark, you… did just say that you’ve been floating in _this_ dream-reality, too, didn’t you?” Lex asked.

...Aaaand there it was. Clark squirmed a little bit next to him on the couch. “Yeah,” he admitted.

“Hm,” said Lex.

Clark stared at him. Because ‘hm’? That was _it?_

“How long have you been floating?” Lex asked him. “And when did... your parents? Tell you that you’re an alien?” he added after a moment.

“The first time I floated was this morning,” Clark told him. “And my dad told me what I am after…” Clark blinked at him. “...Wait,” he said, straightening in place. “You don’t think they’re related...” he said, not exactly a question. He felt stunned in a different way, now.

“They might be,” Lex told him. “Knowing that you likely don’t have human constraints, not being human...” Lex frowned slightly. “Being alien, I mean,” he continued, then seemed to shake himself again. “That could have opened up an entirely different and previously inaccessible part of your subconscious to the possibility that a lack of constraints might allow for...” Lex trailed off, looking uncertain.

Clark wasn’t sure what the difference was between ‘not being human’ and ‘being alien’ was, that would have Lex _correcting himself_ , but what made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end was how uncertain Lex was sounding right then. He hadn’t heard Lex sound that uncertain since the bridge, and that was when...

Clark held his breath.

“No, that can’t be right,” Lex said, thinking out loud as he ghosted a hand over the top of his head. “You would have been more likely to exhibit something like that sooner, rather than later, if that was the case. Certainly before we talked in the cornfield.” He closed his eyes and held his hand on the back of his head, looking a little pained.

Drat. So much for Lex maybe rethinking this ‘sleeping alien god’ stuff.

“...I don’t…” Lex trailed off again.

“Lex?” Clark asked.

Lex reopened his eyes, dropped his hand and shook his head, looking frustrated now. “It’s far more likely to do with this different dreamscape, than with anything that happened here,” he said, half to himself. He looked up at Clark again.

Clark looked back at him.

“Tell me about this dream,” Lex said. “What exactly happened in it?”

“It’s more like what _didn’t_ happen,” Clark said, and then proceeded to tell him.

After Clark finished, Lex looked to be in deep thought for awhile.

Clark waited.

“...You don’t feel guilty about what happened, do you?” Lex asked him, and Clark felt like his heart was caught in his throat. “What happened in that gymnasium, at your school was not your fault,” he reiterated, and Clark had to hold back a shudder.

“How is that not my fault!” he told Lex angrily. “This other-me, he-- he--” Clark clenched his fists. “He rescued everyone!”

“Not necessarily,” Lex said, and Clark swiveled in place to stare at him. “I see two possibilities,” Lex told him after a bit, then grimaced slightly. “Well, two most-likely possibilities. One is that the murderous, previously-comatose individual that you faced simply didn’t exist in that other dreamscape,” Lex told him matter-of-factly, and the thought stole Clark’s breath away. Lex, however, continued on. “The other is that this other you _wasn’t_ you, and is a fragment of yourself so far removed from you that that fragment is, for all intents and purposes, not you,” he ended.

“...What?” Clark said weakly.

“I said…” Lex stopped, and seemed to take a mental step back, regathering his thoughts. “Clark,” he began again, “Have you yourself ever had a tendency to watch, instead of participate, when you might otherwise have a chance to socialize directly?”

“What?” Clark blinked. “I... I guess so,” he said, thinking of Lana and his telescope.

“Were you planning on attending the dance?” Lex asked him.

Clark looked down at the floor, and forced himself not to squirm in place on the couch. “...Yeah,” he admitted, thinking of Lana again.

...and also of Whitney.

“So, you likely would have arrived at school during the time of the dance on your own, even without outside prompting, all things being equal,” Lex said.

“Yes.”

Lex nodded. “And, once there, would you have gone straight in? Or would you have had to work yourself up to it, first?”

Clark startled. He raised his head up and stared at Lex.

“I…” Clark hesitated, and then he saw what Lex was getting at. Because… _would_ he have gone inside? To ask for that dance with Lana? If she’d even really meant it? ...With Whitney right there and looking on while he did it?

Lex nodded. “So, if you hadn’t been accosted, then you could very well have gone on your own and been on that rooftop, instead of going inside.” He looked at Clark. “And you didn’t see that person anywhere while you were there, correct?”

Clark couldn’t help but shake his head.

“Exactly,” Lex told him. He settled back into the couch cushions. “Now, the second possibility is that this fragment of you wasn’t really you,” he said.

“What does that even mean,” Clark said, half-a-complaint, as he scrubbed his hands over his face. He wasn’t exactly happy about the idea of a different him having it so much easier than he did, and Lex was giving him mental whiplash with all this different stuff.

“Well,” Lex said, in perfectly reasonable tones. “You yourself said that you usually dream yourself as yourself, and this time you didn’t; you were separate. So it’s entirely possible that this other-self of yours wasn’t actually you, or wasn’t nearly as close to being you as your other-you,” Lex said.

“...What?” Clark said, looking up at him, completely confused.

Lex sighed. “Clark,” he said. “I very much doubt that there is a rule somewhere that says that only one of you can be in a given dreamscape at a time,” Lex told him, “Especially given that you were able to be there in that one, too, alongside another-self. So,” Lex continued, “It’s entirely possible that _that_ particular dreamscape had more than one fragmented-you already there to begin with,” he was told.

Clark stared.

“So,” Lex said, “That would make it entirely possible that one of you -- your other-you -- was tied up to that cross there -- like you were here -- while your other-self was running around free and available to save your classmates,” Lex told him. Then he frowned and added, “Though, given that I wasn’t anywhere about... that likely means that this other-you died from meteor rock poisoning up on that Scarecrow-cross, and was now haunting your fragmented twin-brother other-self, which is why he didn’t and couldn’t see you.” He nodded once, as he crossed his arms. “You were likely closer to being that fragmented other-you who died than the other self you were watching; that would explain why you were one of you -- your other-you, floating there -- and not the other-self, instead.”

Clark stared at him in shock.

“That is the craziest thing I have ever heard,” Clark told him, flat-out, and Lex had said some really crazy things before this.

Lex shrugged at him. “It makes sense,” Clark was told. “I suppose it’s just as likely that, in that dreamscape, there was only one of you, and somehow that you was able to stop the attack all on his own,” Lex said, “But, being a different you, that fragment likely had different abilities than you do, to use, like teleportation.”

Clark shook his head. He swore he was getting a headache or something from all this.

“Either way, you’re hardly to blame for someone else’s actions,” Lex told him. “Besides, the details hardly matter all that much. What’s done is done here, unless you have some latent omnipotent ability to travel back in time to change things,” Lex told him in almost flippant manner, like he expected Clark would have already told him he could do that, if he could do that. “What _does_ matter is that, either way, you were near a different fragment of yourself in that other dreamscape, and that apparently gave you enough of a mental power-boost to not only float there, but to also be able to float _here_ ,” Lex said, his eyes gleaming yet again. “And when you were away from that other fragmented-self for long enough, you lost that ability, didn’t you?” he asked. “You couldn’t control it or maintain it once you ‘woke up’, having transferred your semi-conscious self back here, to _this_ dream-reality.”

Clark was staring at Lex now, but for an entirely different reason than anything to do with him floating. He couldn’t say anything at first. His mind was a cacophony of thoughts, all yelling at him so loudly, he could barely keep from screaming out loud himself.

“...Clark?” Lex said, sounding slightly uneasy.

Clark carefully pulled in a breath, and licked his lips slightly. He took a moment to think of how exactly he could say even a fraction of what he was thinking, without sounding like a complete and utter lunatic.

Then he thought _to heck with it_ , and said firmly, “You time-traveled.”

Lex blinked at him. “What?”

“You time-traveled,” Clark told him. “That whole thing with your ‘prophetic’ dream...” and now Lex looked aghast.

“I… what?” Lex said. Then he frowned and shook his head. “No,” he said, shaking his head again. “No.”

“You time-traveled, Clark said, determined to make him see it, because-- “It makes sense.”

“No, it doesn’t!” Lex told him, looking more than a little horrified.

“Yes, it does!” Clark insisted. “You ‘dreamed’ the future! Only you didn’t dream it, you were actually there! You were in an alien fortress-thing, and when everything went wrong, you jumped back!”

Lex was still shaking his head, staring at him.

“No, Clark-- that can’t-- the physics--” Lex began.

“I break physics,” Clark insisted. “Physics can be broken! I float and break gravity! I can survive getting hit by a car -- you’ve seen that yourself.”

“Conservation of energy is still a thing!” Lex said hotly. “Matter can’t be created or destroyed. I didn’t jump back!”

“--You knew me, before we met! How else could you know me, if that wasn’t real?” Clark cut him off, getting up and pacing. “You didn’t want to kill me, so you did something. You did something about it. You wanted to change things,” he told Lex, and that had to be right, didn’t it? If he’d wanted to control Clark, not kill him, but Clark had died instead, then... That had to be it. “You’re not older or anything, so you didn’t jump back physically, you just… sent as much of you as you could back mentally,” Clark said, turning back to him, staring at him, intent, clenching his fists. “--We need to find that crystal fortress again.”

“What! --No!” Lex protested, jumping to his feet.

“Yes,” said Clark. “If that thing can send you back in time, then maybe--” -- _maybe I could use it, too_ , Clark thought. He could use it, and--

“No,” Lex said darkly, stomping towards him. “No, you can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can,” Clark said angrily, because why _couldn’t_ he? If it were true, if it were possible to--

\--then Pete would be alive. Chloe… Chloe wouldn’t be in a coma, stuck in a coma for who knew how long. Lana wouldn’t be… she wouldn’t be…

Lana had gotten hit worse than most of the others. That she’d survived at all was a miracle; that guy had hated jocks, and Whitney had been all-but-toast. He’d turned her around, and down, gotten in-between her and whatever had hit them all -- or he’d tried to, as much as he could -- but he was taller, and the star quarterback on the starting lineup of the football team, and he’d gotten hit harder than almost anyone else there in the gymnasium, even the rest of the other jocks. And most of the electricity that had hit and _fried_ him had transferred through his body, and jumped down into her. Lana wasn’t okay; she was on life-support. She wasn’t like Chloe, who had survived, who the doctors thought might eventually wake up -- Lana was _completely_ brain-dead. Without the machines, she wouldn’t be breathing, her heart would stop beating.

And last he’d heard, Lana’s Aunt Nell was thinking about pulling the plug sometime that week.

“You can’t,” Lex insisted, reaching for him.

“Why not!?” Clark said, pulling back. Why couldn’t he at least _try?_ If he was an alien, and Lex was a human who didn’t hate him, and he could _break gravity_ , and all these impossible things were somehow possible, then why couldn’t time travel be possible, too?

“Because it’s not possible!” Lex said adamantly, staring him straight in the eye. “And even if it was, then where would it end, Clark?” he gritted out.

“...What?” Clark said.

“Where. would. it. _end._ ” Lex took in a breath, and he did not look happy -- anything but. “I understand that you want to save your friends -- but why stop there?” Lex said grandly, with a maniacal look in his eye, as he cut Clark off with a gesture. “How far back do you want to go?” he asked him.

“What?” Clark said, feeling more than a little off-balance now.

“Why stop there?” Lex said intensely, moving forward, into Clark’s personal space. “What about stopping the meteor shower?” Clark startled. “Didn’t people get hurt during that, too?” he asked, and before Clark could even focus on that, he continued on. “--But why stop there, little more than a decade back? Maybe you don’t have to be alive to send memories backwards into yourself; what if time travel isn’t restricted to just sending back thoughts? If you could go back _physically_ ,” Lex bit out, “Then why would you stop there? --What about killing Hitler? Or Mussolini? Or any _number_ of dictators? Why not stop a _war_ from happening,” Lex insisted, as Clark backed up and he advanced on him. “Think of the _lives_ you could save! --Why not stop _every_ war. Hell, why not go back and prevent the dinosaurs from going extinct,” Lex said, “So that humanity never comes into existence in the first place to **screw everything up!** ” and Clark started to feel a little sick. “Why not, Clark? _Why not?_ What’s _stopping you?_ ” Lex all but hissed out.

“I--” Clark felt more than a little shaky at how pissed off Lex was with him just then.

Lex clenched his jaw and turned away from him, paced away from him, running a hand over his head. “Do you _want_ me to control you?” he said. “Is that what you want?”

“No…” Clark said, feeling more than a little scared. “I… why--” Why would he do that? He’d said-- before-- he had said--

Lex rounded on him. “BECAUSE YOU AREN’T OMNISCIENT!” Lex yelled at him. “You think you can make things _BETTER?!_ How can you be _so sure_ that you wouldn’t just make them _worse_ , instead!” He paced back over to him. “You aren’t _thinking_ ,” he told Clark. “You--” He looked away for a moment, then back to Clark. “If I thought for _one second_ that you were going to try and screw around with the timeline like that, I’d-- I’d have to stop you,” and suddenly, Clark realized that Lex was shaking, standing there in place. “I’d have to stop you, and-- I’d have to use that damned Orb on you again, wouldn’t I?” Lex said, beginning to shake even harder. “And I _DON’T WANT TO DO THAT!_ ” he all but yelled at Clark. “Do you _really_ want to make me do that again?!”

Clark stood there and stared at Lex, eyes wide. He didn’t say a word.

Lex stood there, chest heaving, and Clark looked on with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he watched Lex grit his teeth again and forcibly try and get his breathing under control.

“You are _not_ going looking for that damned crystal fortress,” Lex told him, like it was an edict. “We are not doing that. You are staying away from that thing, wherever it is, and nobody is going to go looking for that damn Orb,” Lex said, and now his voice was shaking, too. “That is _not_ happening,” he repeated. “This is not some-- some damn _time loop_ ,” he said. “This is-- this is just a dream,” Lex continued, looking calmer as he talked himself down; Lex wasn’t shaking as badly anymore, but he _was_ still shaking. “This is a dream that you are having, a new dream -- a _different_ dream,” Lex insisted, “where you are-- are sleeping and dreaming us all and _not_ going to die.” Lex took in a shaky breath. “And you are not omnipotent, or omniscient, and that’s okay,” Lex said. “Everything is-- everything is fine, the way it is,” Lex told him, “And _nothing needs to change._ ”

And now Clark was shivering, too.

“Time travel is a ludicrous idea, anyway,” Lex told him flatly, turning away from him. “It doesn’t even make sense. We both got crushed under that roof, under at least half a ton of broken crystal shards; we both died, so I couldn’t have traveled back, physically _or_ mentally. Even if I would have wanted to fix things, I couldn't have,” Lex told him, staring off into the distance. “And even assuming that I could have done that, using the Orb or that fortress somehow, why would I have jumped back so far? A handful of minutes would have been enough.” He took in a breath. “And I was surprised that you were… there,” Lex said, “In that other dream.” He took in another breath. “And I know that you’re alien, now. I doubt I did then,” he added, not looking at Clark. “So either you weren’t alien the last time, or you were and I didn’t know it. So...” he took in another breath. “So things are different this time. So it can’t be time travel,” he said, turning back to Clark, “Because then this would have to be some sort of paradox that we are stuck in, some sort of time-bubble,” Lex said, looking off into the distance again, “and that would rupture the timestream somehow. We wouldn’t exist at all in the first place. So it can’t have happened that way.” He turned his attention back to Clark. “Time doesn’t work that way.”

Lex stared at Clark at the end of this pronouncement. Clark swallowed, hard.

“Okay,” Clark said, quietly, as he wrapped his arms around himself and tried to make himself stop shaking.

“You are _not_ going to go looking for that fortress, or that Orb,” Lex said, and it wasn’t a question. It was a **command**.

Lex was staring him straight in the eye, dead-on with a gimlet glare, fully focused on him, and--

“...okay,” Clark managed to get out, through a closed-up throat. Because he was scared to death just then.

He was scared to death of Lex. Lex was _scary_.

He hadn’t thought Lex might be able to kill him before, he hadn’t seemed capable of it -- he’d seemed too _nice_ , too easygoing to ever…

But now...

Lex nodded once, still staring him straight in the eye, an affirmation of Clark’s verbal response.

“Good,” Lex said.

He took in another breath, and turned away from Clark again.

“So,” said Lex, as he paced -- walked -- stalked back to the couch and sat down again. His hands gripped the couch cushions, and then relaxed, slowly. “What else has been going on lately? What did you do after you woke up?” Lex asked him, speaking in a completely normal tone of voice.

He looked up at Clark calmly, looking for the world as if he hadn’t been acting anything other than normal just a few seconds ago, as if nothing at all was wrong, and Clark stared back down at him.

He wondered if Lex was really insane.

...He wondered if Lex really _was_ insane.

Clark swallowed, hard. He took in a slow breath, that almost hurt to get down his throat, past the lump in his throat where his Adam’s apple was, and into his lungs, to try and fill them.

He still had his arms wrapped around himself, and he tried like hell to stop shaking like a leaf. Because it didn’t seem like a good idea to keep doing that in front of Lex.

“I, uh.” Clark swallowed again, managed to get a tremulous smile. He probably wasn’t fooling anyone, though. Certainly not himself. (Definitely not Lex.) He took in another breath. “I helped out around the farm. School’s still out until further notice.” With more than half the teachers dead, along with everybody else… He breathed out, then in again. “I...” Clark trailed off, his poor attempt at a smile wavering, then dropping off of his face. He couldn’t do this.

He felt a little like crying.

Lex looked on, staring at Clark with his full attention, but then Lex’s expression seemed to shift slightly and Lex sighed.

“Come over here,” Lex said quietly, and Clark came over and sat down next to him, staring down at the floor underneath his feet. Lex put a hand on his shoulder.

They sat there for awhile, Lex being calm, and Clark being… not-so-much.

Lex began to move his hand back and forth, in Clark’s peripheral vision, rubbing his shoulder. Trying to comfort him. ...Not that Clark could feel it. He didn’t really have a sense of touch. He couldn’t feel what Lex was doing, any more than he’d been able to feel Lex’s fingers when Lex had tried to pinch him on the riverbank. To ‘wake him up.’

Not that Lex knew that.

And because Lex didn’t know any better, and Clark didn’t want to tell him otherwise, Lex kept on rubbing his hand over Clark’s shoulder.

Lex didn’t say anything.

Clark didn’t say anything back.

...and eventually, neither of them were shaking, anymore.

“This isn’t your fault,” Lex told him. “None of this is your fault,” he said quietly.

Clark took a deep breath in, and shakily let it out again. It didn’t really help.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Lex told him. “I--” He stopped, and looked away. “I am having a hard time thinking of you as a god of any sort. Still.” He took in a breath and let it out. “So I suppose I’m having a hard time coming to terms with what that might actually mean, while you still seem so…”

“...young?” Clark said.

“Human,” Lex said. “Normal. Flawed. Fallible.”

Clark shuddered. He couldn’t help it.

“Not that you’re not human, exactly,” Lex said, frowning.

“I’m an alien,” Clark reminded him, pulling away from him a bit.

Lex frowned at him. “Being human has less to do with genetics than thought patterns and behavior,” Lex told him. “You may not be the same species, Clark, but I doubt that means that... you…” He trailed off again, his hand going still on Clark’s shoulder.

“...Lex?”

Lex physically shook his head back and forth. “Sorry,” he told Clark. “I just... “ He looked at him oddly. “It just occurred to me to wonder... how not-human you might actually be. Genetically.” He tilted his head slightly. “I may have been making a few odd assumptions there.”

Clark slowly, very slowly, started to shift away from Lex, out from under his hand.

“...What’s that supposed to mean?” Clark asked, sounding a lot calmer to his own ears than he actually felt right then. And it was only partially because Lex’s gaze was roaming over his face, both seeing him and not-seeing him -- which was starting to give him the creeps, because Lex was looking at him like…

Well, Lex was looking at _him_. What he looked like. People generally didn’t _do_ that. Clark was used to being ignored.

“Clark,” Lex said slowly, “Do you have any idea how unlikely it is that an alien species from a completely different planet would look anything like human?” Clark was told. “Even the species on our own planet in the same _Hominidae_ family barely look anything like _Homo sapiens_.” Lex frowned up at him. “I very much doubt we live in a _Star Trek_ universe, where all intelligent species look almost exactly alike.” Lex leaned towards him slightly, then seemed to change his mind and sat back against the cushions behind their backs, shaking his head. “Even if you did dream it all up, I have a feeling that you’re far more imaginative than I am, and even _I_ can conceive of alien-looking aliens.”

Clark barely managed to keep a frown off his face, but he couldn’t keep himself from tensing up. Because, sure, Lex didn’t sound like he wanted to cut him up and use him for parts the way he was talking just then... but then Lex hadn’t seemed like he’d get angry so quickly earlier, either -- yet when Clark had brought up time travel, Lex had gotten really _scary_ , really fast. And Clark had no idea where Lex was going with this.

Lex rubbed his fingers across the bridge of his nose again, then sighed. “I mean,” he pulled a slight face, “It seems more likely to me that you’re a modified human, rather than an actual honest-to-god alien.” Clark stared at him, as he frowned again slightly. “Not that there’d be anything wrong with you being alien, _per se_. It’s just that it seems more likely that your ‘being an alien’ is something more akin to window-dressing, as an excuse for explaining away your abilities easily. Not much depth to it,” he ended.

Clark wasn’t tense anymore. What he was, was flabbergasted.

“Not--” Clark's mouth worked silently for a moment, before he could get any more sound to come out. “Not much _depth?!_ ” he exclaimed.

Lex winced slightly, and pulled his arms in. “I don’t mean that in a disparaging way,” he said, sounding a little sorry about it. “I just suspect that maybe a different fragment of your consciousness might have gotten a little lazy with the creation of this particular dream-reality, is all.”

Clark stared at him.

Okay, no. You know what? It was completely okay for him to ask this, Clark figured.

“What do you mean, _not much depth_ ,” Clark demanded.

Lex blinked at him.

“Well,” Lex began. “Where are all the other aliens?” he asked.

Clark blinked at him, stopped short. “What?”

“Where are all the other aliens,” Lex repeated, straightening in place. “You came down in a spaceship in the meteor shower, correct?” Lex didn’t quite ask, because they’d been over this before.

“Yes,” Clark confirmed anyway.

“And your alien parents weren’t there, as far as you or your human parents or anyone else is aware,” Lex pressed.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little strange?” Lex asked him. “Or maybe a little irresponsible?”

Clark scrunched his shoulders up. “Maybe,” he said, not wanting to get into how that made him feel, that he’d basically been tossed away like so much garbage by parents who obviously hadn’t wanted him anywhere near them, to the point that they’d shot him into space as a baby.

“I mean,” Lex said, “You’d think they could have at least left a note.” He sounded almost offended. “And, so, what, they were okay with the first person who walked up to your spaceship getting to lay ‘claim’ to you?” Lex said, building up steam, which had Clark shifting in place uneasily. “It’s not like they could have known that the Kents would be the ones to open it up and take you out of it!” Lex told him testily. “And if these alien-parents of yours really do, or did, look human, and did and were able to pick Earth as a suitable planet for you to hide out on for that reason, then they certainly ought to have been able to leave a note in plain English behind for whomever found you to read,” Lex told him heatedly, arms crossed. “They’d practically have to know at least one major Earth language to have been able to verify that the planet wasn’t full of cannibalistic morons!”

Clark was staring at him. His mouth hadn’t dropped open, but it was a near-thing.

“--And don’t even get me started on the meteor shower,” Lex continued on. “That’s _absolutely_ irresponsible, letting all that come crashing down along with you. Even if they didn’t care about the human populace living here for whatever reason, those meteor rocks make you deathly ill!”

“My parents didn’t take me out of the spaceship!” Clark said hurriedly, looking for pretty much anything to distract Lex right then. He didn’t want Lex to start yelling again, and it sounded like he might start doing that any second now.

“--That… What?” Lex said, successfully derailed, and now he was staring at Clark again.

“My parents -- the Kents,” Clark added, for clarification, “-- they didn’t take me out of the spaceship,” Clark told him. “They weren’t the first people to walk up to my spaceship and ‘claim’ me,” Clark said, feeling a little bit weird talking about this, since he didn’t actually remember it; his parents had told him this. “It was the other way around. They didn’t find me; I found them.”

Lex stared at him.

“...I’m sorry,” Lex said. “Did you just say…” He frowned at Clark, and it looked like an entirely different frown than any of the other frowns that Lex had given him earlier. Then Lex shook his head in disbelief. “Clark... “ He looked almost lost for words. “How on earth do you know that you’re an alien, then?”

Clark blinked at him. “Huh?”

“They didn’t pull you out of whatever spaceship that they found,” Lex repeated. “So how do they know that you were ever in it in the first place?”

“They found it nearby,” Clark told him.

“Correlation does not equal causation, Clark,” Lex told him with no small irritation. “...Or, in this case, I suppose it might be better to say, proximity does not equal ownership.” He shook his head at Clark numbly, not looking away. “How in the world could you possibly think that that spaceship is yours? How could they?”

“...Because I’m super-strong and really really fast, and apparently I’m almost carproof and can also _float?_ ” Clark told him.

Lex made a sort of strangled, irritated sound from the back of his throat, and then pinched the bridge of his nose again.

“...Fine,” Lex muttered after awhile. “I suppose that it _is_ somewhat implausible that the meteor rock or the ship might’ve done something… _that_ drastic to you, if you’d started out completely and nominally human,” Lex told him. “So it would make more sense that you have and have had a completely alien physiology from the start, instead of a modified-by-alien-tech human one.”

“You don’t sound that happy about it,” Clark noted.

“It just seems sloppy to me,” Lex repeated. He pursed his lips. “Though I suppose it does fit my theory of you being a sleeping god much better.”

“...Why?” Clark asked.

“Dream logic,” Lex told him.

Clark collapsed back onto the couch cushions and had to stifle a groan.

Lex watched him for awhile, then sighed deeply.

“I suppose it can’t be helped,” Lex said, dropping his hands into his lap and collapsing back into the couch himself.

Clark turned his head to look at him. “What can’t be helped?”

Lex twisted his lips sideways, then back again, making a weird sort of face. “I’ll just have to help you put your mind back together, is all.”

Clark blinked once, twice, then just stared at him.

“Not that I particularly relish the idea of helping you become powerful enough to possibly muck about with the whole timeline at once,” Lex continued on, closing his eyes and leaning back into the couch cushions even further, letting his head drop back to rest on the back of it. “But with any luck we’ll get you back some small amount of omniscience while we’re at it, so you hopefully won’t screw things up too badly, in whatever you decide to do.”

Clark stared at him. “...What?”

Lex cracked open his eyes and looked at him sideways. “You just confirmed at the beginning of our conversation that you get more capable, more of your alien-god powers back, just by being in close proximity to another of your fragmented selves,” Lex told him. “If we can manage to actually reintegrate you with enough of those selves, you ought to be able to take control of every dream-reality’s dreamscape within reach. ...eventually.” Lex closed his eyes again. “I don’t doubt that it’ll happen sooner or later, so I might as well help speed the process along so that it happens sooner, rather than later.”

“...But you don’t want me messing up the timeline,” Clark said, wondering what the heck had just happened here.

Lex cracked open his eyes again. “No, Clark. I don’t want you messing up the timeline and _making things worse_. --Which is what will happen if you aren’t omniscient enough to know what will happen with the changes that you might make. If you really want to do this, to try and go back and fix what happened at the school that night, I might as well help you do it in something of a more controlled manner, so that less mistakes are made along the way.” He sat forward, and eyed Clark for a moment or two, as Clark tried to puzzle over this. “Do you even know why that ex-comatose ex-Scarecrow showed up in those fields?” he asked Clark.

“He… came to see me,” Clark said, then straightened. “Wait, how did you know he was a Scarecrow?” Clark exclaimed.

Lex grimaced. “I was there, in that field, when the meteor shower came down,” Lex told him, to Clark’s growing horror. “So was he, up on that cross. I saw him hanging there. That’s how I knew who he was; I recognized him.”

“I…” Clark’s mouth suddenly felt dry. “You were in Smallville when the meteor shower hit?” he asked weakly, feeling strained.

Lex nodded. “It was pretty terrifying. My father came here to buy the plant that day, and he dragged me along to Smallville with him. I was out, walking around in the cornfield, exploring, when I ran across the Scarecrow.” He shrugged. “And then the sky fell in and a meteor nearly crushed me,” he told Clark, with a shrug.

“I… I’m sorry,” Clark said, at a loss. He didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s fine,” Lex told him. “I survived. Lost my hair because of it,” he ran a hand over his head. “But it’s not like I liked my hair at all, anyway,” he said mildly, as he dropped his hand. He sounded like he was discussing the weather, like it didn’t matter to him in the least, what had happened to him.

What Clark had done to him.

“...I’m sorry,” Clark said again, feeling about two inches tall.

“Why?” Lex said, looking at him a little more intensely. Then he blinked. “Clark, honestly,” he said, in a chiding voice, with a shadow of a smile. “I don’t blame you for what happened. --You don’t even remember the meteor shower, do you?” Lex asked him. “You can’t possibly, if your father had to tell you that you’re an alien, because you didn’t know it.”

“But if I hadn’t been there--” Clark began, feeling sick.

“--then for all either of us know, it might have all come down anyway, just the same,” Lex told him, which startled Clark all over again. “How do you know it wouldn’t?” Lex prodded. “You’re not omniscient, your subconscious is clearly running amuck, sideways to most of what you want, and it’s not like there are any other aliens around that have said otherwise, are there?”

“...I don’t think so?” Clark said. If there were, they were sure a lot better at hiding than him, he figured.

“Well, then,” Lex said, “There you go.” Like that effectively ended the argument. Then Lex blinked, looking a little nonplussed, and said, “I certainly _hope_ there aren’t any other sleeping alien-gods around, roaming the Earth.” Lex frowned, and looked over at Clark. “Not that I don’t like you -- I do -- but I don’t think I could handle two of you, running around down here.”

Clark blinked at him. And then he laughed.

Lex smiled.

When Clark was done laughing, and Lex was done watching him with a smile on his face, the bald billionaire added, more seriously, “Clark, has it occurred to you that if you hadn’t been put up on that cross, that your friends might have been killed that much sooner?”

“What?!” Clark said, startled.

Lex looked at him. “If you hadn’t gotten taken as the Scarecrow this year, you wouldn’t have been in that field in the first place, to have been visited by that other Scarecrow. ...And I doubt that they use the same field every year, or they’d get caught,” Lex added. “So, he would’ve had to have seen you get taken, and followed them to the field, most likely, rather than going straight to the dance.”

“But if they hadn’t hurt me--” Clark began.

Lex paused for a moment. “Clark, do you really think that he was hurting them just to get revenge for you? To help you?”

“...No,” Clark said.

“No,” Lex agreed. “Because if he’d actually cared about you, he wouldn’t have left you up on that cross.”

Clark shivered.

“Let’s say that you’re right for a moment, that you could use time travel to go back and try to fix things,” Lex said. “The first thing you were thinking of trying to do would be to not get hung up on that cross, so that you wouldn’t be stuck up there and could do something about him, correct?”

Clark had an uneasy feeling about where Lex was going with this.

”If you hadn’t been hung up there, he quite likely would have electrocuted everyone in that gymnasium that much sooner,” Lex told him. “If you went back in time and simply avoided getting caught, things would likely turn out very differently, and you still might not be able to stop him. We still don’t even know exactly what he did,” Lex told him. “How would you expect to stop him, when you aren’t even sure what happened in the first place, or how anyone might react if you tried to do things differently?” he asked him.

“I could try to get the gym evacuated,” Clark said. “I could call off the dance!”

Lex looked at him askance. “And do you really think anyone would have listened to you, if you’d suddenly run in and told everyone that they had to get outside, or else they’d all die?”

Clark looked down at his hands and grimaced. He knew -- just like Lex knew -- that no, he wouldn’t have been able to get anybody to go outside; he’d just have gotten himself in trouble, instead. Nothing would have changed. Everyone would have still gotten hurt; everyone who had died would have still been killed.

“Do no harm,” Lex said. “If you aren’t absolutely sure that you can make things better, then at least try not to make them any worse, all right?”

Clark hung his head. He felt so frustrated, and useless.

Lex sighed.

“We can work on omniscience first, all right?” he told Clark, and Clark really had no response to that, other than to close his eyes and shake his head.

“It’ll all work out eventually,” Lex told him. “You’ll see. We’ll get your dreaming mind put back together again.” He paused for a moment. “ _Do_ you want me to teach you sign language? Just because the one fragment of yourself couldn’t see you, doesn’t necessarily mean that others won’t be able to.”

Clark rubbed a hand across his face and, not for the first time, wondered how exactly this was his life.

“Being able to communicate with them could help,” Lex added, sounding somewhat hopeful about it.

“...Sure,” Clark said, after he thought about it for awhile. “Why not.”

Lex smiled, and his eyes lit up.

“Okay,” said Lex, straightening in place. “The first thing you have to know about sign language is--”

~*~*~*~*~*~


	4. Chapter 4

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark woke up, and stared up at the ceiling. He desperately tried not to cry.

He’d dreamed that other ‘dreamscape’ again.

Chloe had been there. And Pete. They’d both been _alive_.

So had Lana, at least for awhile. Maybe. He wasn’t sure yet if she was okay.

...No, this was stupid. _It was just a dream,_ he told himself, as he rolled over in bed and curled up in a ball on his side. It hadn’t been the future, like Lex’s dream. So it couldn’t be real. Because it was something almost like the present.

Except everyone was still alive.

...and things were really messed up there, too, just in a very different way.

He’d gotten attacked by Greg Larkin -- who’d been some kind of super-powered bug-boy there, for some reason -- or, at least, his “other-self” had. They’d been in the barn, that other-him and his dad, and Greg had come after that other-him, talking about Lana.

Clark been standing on the ground, this time, watching everything happen, not floating. He’d still been invisible to everyone, for all intents and purposes -- and intangible; he hadn’t been able to touch anything, either.

He’d tried not to talk, wanting to see more of Pete, more of Chloe, but when Greg had come at that other-him in the barn from behind, Clark had instinctively yelled “Watch out!!” -- or tried to.

And that had been when he’d woken up.

Clark shivered, and wondered if this was a thing that would ever go away. He’d heard about PTSD and depression, but this didn’t seem to be anything like the same thing as that. No. This was probably sort-of, but-not-really, all Lex’s fault, and because Clark wasn’t about to stop hanging out with Lex anytime soon -- and Lex wasn’t going to stop hanging around the farm anytime soon, if his mom had anything to say about it, and she did -- then Clark was likely going to keep having these kinds of dreams. So he should be resigned to it.

He should totally be resigned to it, seeing his friends alive and healthy and living their lives, the way they should have, would have, could have done, if only...

If only.

Maybe, if he tried very hard, Clark could remember to not try and say anything next time. To force himself not to try and speak. Maybe then he could live in that dream for a little while longer, and see his friends again. It was a different kind of nightmare, where people he knew were monsters, but it was a nightmare that Clark thought he could tolerate easily. Because if it meant seeing his friends again… even if they couldn’t see him, it was okay. As long as his friends were okay, Clark wouldn’t mind.

They hadn’t seen him half the time here, anyway, before what had happened in the gym -- not really. So it wasn’t all that different there, in his dreams, because they hadn’t really seen him before, here. Not the real him.

So long as he could see his friends again...

Maybe, if he remembered not to say anything, he could live there, seeing them, for a really long time. A really, really long time.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	5. Chapter 5

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Clark trudged up to his Fortress of Solitude after his morning chores were done, and he found Lex already up there, sleeping peacefully, Clark started. Then stared.

He realized he’d been so out of it that he’d maneuvered around Lex’s car, almost on autopilot, on the way into the barn. The fact that Lex’s car had been outside hadn’t really registered with him, before. It sort of did now, thinking back on his trek across the yard.

Which was kind of silly, in a not-silly way, because Lex’s cars were anything but not-noticeable. Each and every one of them was pretty much the opposite of that, in fact, all fast and sleek. They were…

_...well, okay, fast but not_ that _fast_ , Clark thought with a snort. He could still outrun each and every one of them. He’d timed himself, once, in the cornfields. Next to him, Lex’s cars stood still.

He thought about that for a moment.

Then it occurred to him that if he hadn’t gotten into the car with Lex that night, three days ago, that he probably could’ve gotten to the gymnasium before Jeremy Creek had gotten there. And if he’d done that, then he might’ve been able to stop him. And every one of his friends would still be alive.

He stared down at Lex as he thought this, where Lex’s body was laid out on the couch, under a horse blanket, face slack, and Clark watched him breathe. It was like Lex wasn’t really there.

That was when he really wondered if he should start blaming Lex for things.

He watched Lex breathe in, then out. In, then out.

It reminded him a little of Chloe, in the hospital. It was like she wasn’t really there, too.

The only real difference Clark could see, was that Lex was sprawled out on a couch, not a hospital bed, laying sideways, not on his back, with his arms tucked under his head, and he had a little more color in him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex jerked in place slightly.

“Mm?” Lex said, blinking his eyes open, slowly stretching and looking around hazily. It was clear that he had no idea what had woken him up.

Clark had dropped a book on the hard wooden floor of the loft. Not entirely on purpose. ...Mostly.

Clark waited a bit, while Lex finished stretching. Clark waited until after Lex had slowly sat up. Then...

“Why are you here?” Clark asked him, not entirely looking at him from where he was sitting at his desk.

“Hm?” Lex said. He frowned slightly, and rubbed a hand behind the back of his neck lazily. “Not like I have anywhere else I’d rather be,” he said, with sleep still softening his voice. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “It’s a Saturday; I don’t have work.”

“And?” Clark prompted him, in mild tones he definitely wasn’t feeling just then. He was on-edge still, after Greg had...

...but that had been just a dream, though.

Well, he still didn’t like it. And he didn’t have to. This was _his_ loft, and Lex had come up here without his permission.

“And…?” Lex repeated, then paused. He turned to face Clark more fully. His forehead wrinkled up. “I suppose I like it better here than the mansion,” he said, then pulled his arms up and, with his arms no longer bracing himself, let himself collapse back into the couch cushions with a soft ‘whomp’. “Reminds me of Blackcreek,” he said, sounding half-asleep again. “And you’re all kind of nice,” he murmured, with his arms covering over his eyes.

“And?” Clark prompted him again.

“I don’t really have anyplace else I need to be,” he repeated, sounding a little more awake this time. “...And I suppose I thought that your parents might sleep better at night knowing exactly where I was and what I was and was not doing?” Lex added, letting his arms slide up to lay behind his head, before turning his head to face Clark more fully. “I don’t believe I talk in my sleep, but I suppose that it’s better to be safe than sorry. There _are_ staff that might overhear me at the mansion if I did.”

Clark turned around and stared at him.

Lex sighed. “Clark, I am not wholly unaware of the fact that your parents think I am more than a little insane, and would rather that I spend less time out of their sight and around other people, because of that,” Lex informed him dryly. He stretched in place. “Not that I don’t sympathize; it’s not as though they have any particular reason to trust or otherwise believe me, when I say I won’t talk about any of it with anyone else,” Lex told him, as he finished his stretch and relaxed into the couch again.

Clark flattened his lips, then asked, again, “...And?”

Lex blinked at him, and now he looked a little unsure. “...And I think I’m all out of ‘and’s?” he said. Clark turned away from him, back to his desk, but he still heard Lex sit up again slowly. “Clark, have I done something wrong?”

“You could have asked,” Clark said, shoving the book back into place on the desk’s bookshelf.

He practically heard Lex blink from across the room. “Asked?” he heard Lex repeat quietly, then a bit louder: “Asked what?”

“You could have asked,” Clark repeated, turning to face him. Lex looked completely lost, and Clark wondered if this anger he was feeling was anything like what his dad had felt when Lex had just walked in and sat down at the kitchen table, that first day. “It’s my loft,” he told Lex.

Lex looked puzzled for a moment.

“Yes,” he said a little blankly, like he was agreeing with him -- that it was, in fact, Clark’s loft. “It’s much nicer than the crystal one,” Lex told him, but then he finally seemed to get it. “--I’m sorry,” he told Clark. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t welcome up here.”

Clark grumbled to himself and wanted to kick his foot against the floor, because after the way Lex had said that, now he felt like he was being some kind of a jerk about it, and everything.

Lex sighed. “You know, you could have said,” he told Clark in grown-up sounding, reasonable tones, as he pushed off of his knees and stood up. “I didn’t mean to intrude upon your space.”

“It’s fine,” Clark mumbled out.

“Clearly, it isn’t,” Lex told him, though he didn’t really sound angry about it or anything, just a little tired, maybe. He paused and tilted his head slightly at Clark, and Clark looked away.

“All right,” Lex said quietly. And Clark sat there while he folded up the blanket, gathered up his shoes, and left.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark ran into Lex in the kitchen again, around lunchtime.

When he looked around for his parents, Lex said, “They went to the store for some supplies.”

Clark pulled a face, and started rooting around in the refrigerator for some sandwich fixings, to make himself one like Lex had done.

He started feeling irritated again when Lex wouldn’t stop looking at him.

“--What?” Clark said, as he slapped down a final layer of bread on his third sandwich.

Lex blinked at him. He frowned slightly, finished chewing and swallowing, then put his sandwich down on his plate.

“Should I eat elsewhere?” he asked Clark.

“Does dad know that you’re eating our stuff?” Clark asked, verbally stepping sideways on that one for the jiu-jitsu hip-throw.

“Yes,” Lex said.

Clark frowned at him, because he couldn’t imagine his dad being okay with that, even if his mom was trying to push for Lex to come over for meals and then stay longer...

“I did offer to pitch in some funds for the food bill,” Lex told him simply. “He flat-out told me ‘no’, and that he was perfectly capable of handling their own food bills.” Lex frowned slightly. “Everyone’s food supplies. Your--” He frowned a little more deeply. “...We’re out of coffee,” Lex added, apropos of nothing.

“What?” Clark said.

“I tend to operate better once I’ve had my daily dose of caffeine, and I haven’t had any yet today,” Lex said. “I’m fairly sure I just botched the verb tenses and the subject matter in all that severely.”

Clark stared at him.

“...Tea isn’t good enough, and you all apparently never drink soda?” Lex tried.

Clark rubbed a hand over his face, then decided to let it go and got to eating his sandwiches, instead.

Lex finished his sandwich, and put his dishes in the sink. Then he hesitated and seemed to think the better of that, and with Clark watching him, he washed them up to put them in the drying rack, instead of just leaving them there.

“Clark,” he began, as he toweled his hands dry, and then hung the towel up again. “I can understand how my being nearby might make you feel somewhat uncomfortable, being a reminder of just how different you are, and what you can do,” he told Clark, turning to face him. “If you don’t want to see me again, I’ll respect your wishes. This is your dream,” Lex told him, “And it’s your decision. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about what your parents think.”

Clark gritted his teeth slightly at the thought of Lex looking down on his parents like that. But his mom wanted him to stay. Right?

“It’s fine,” Clark told him, staring down at his food.

“Clark--”

“--It’s _fine_ ,” Clark insisted, and he didn’t know what he was even supposed to say. It wasn’t like he hated Lex, and never wanted to see him again. It was just that...

“Clark, what’s wrong?” Lex asked him.

Clark grimaced. He knew he shouldn’t tell Lex what he’d figured out, about what had happened that night, about how Lex had kept him from saving everybody. But then Lex would either feel horrible about it, which would be bad enough, or he wouldn’t feel bad about it at all, which would be even worse. So Clark didn’t say anything at all.

Lex sighed again.

“Fine,” he said quietly. “Is it all right if I sleep in the house here, at least?”

Clark nodded, but then looked over at Lex as Lex walked past him, because now that he thought about it, where exactly did Lex expect to sleep? His parents bed? Clark’s room?

He figured it out pretty much right away, when Lex toed off his shoes and flopped down onto the couch in the living room a few seconds later.

_\--Wait._ “You’re falling asleep _now?_ ” Clark asked him, staring, because hadn’t Lex just woken up about an hour ago?

“I’m tired,” he was told, as Lex curled up on the couch.

“You’re tired?” Clark repeated. “How can you be tired?”

“I just am, Clark,” Lex told him, as he shifted in place to get settled. “Don’t you ever just get tired sometimes?”

“No,” Clark said, because he’d never felt tired in his life.

“Well, I do,” Lex mumbled out, as he closed his eyes.

And about a second and a half later, he was out.

Like _out_ -out. Like a light. Clark had never seen anyone fall asleep so fast.

Clark stared at him, and watched Lex’s chest slowly rise and fall. Rise and fall.

He scrunched up his shoulders and stared, feeling a not so great feeling in the pit of his stomach, because was this normal? His mom and dad didn’t do this, falling asleep in the middle of the day for no reason. Was something else wrong with Lex?

Clark started to worry.

...Then Clark realized that, for all intents and purposes, he was now alone in the house, and it made him angry all over again.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	6. Chapter 6

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark banged down one of the pot lids onto its soup pot, and Lex flinched awake again, like he had in the barn loft. Served him right.

“Nngnmf?” Lex said blearily, as he lifted his head, then let it fall again with a thump.

He seemed less awake than he had been before, which also served him right, as far as Clark was concerned.

“Whh--” Lex stopped, then grimaced. He pushed himself upright, from his stomach, then fell back to a seated position, wavering. “What…” He looked around, then turned and looked around further, and stopped when he saw Clark in the kitchen. Then he looked past him, out the window.

“It’s dark out,” Lex said, sounding a little nonplussed.

“Yes,” said Clark, no longer concerned with trying to stay quiet and not banging things around on the stove.

Lex frowned; Clark saw it out of the corner of his eye as he got the milk out of the fridge. “Where… are your parents?” he asked, as he turned his head to take in the rest of the downstairs in view.

“Still out,” Clark told him.

He glanced over at Lex, and realized that said bald interloper had gotten a confused and slightly worried look.

“That was hours ago,” Lex said, almost a question more than a statement of fact.

“Yeah,” said Clark.

“They haven’t been back?” Lex said, in rising tones, turning back to look at him again.

“No,” said Clark.

“But…” Lex looked about, like he was searching for something, and he seemed confused. And maybe a little worried, too. “Shouldn’t they have been back by now?”

“Maybe,” Clark said. “What all did they say they had to get?”

Lex rubbed his forehead, and closed his eyes.

“They didn’t say,” he told Clark.

Clark frowned.

“Well, where did they say they were going?” he asked, turning around to face Lex.

Lex looked a little nonplussed again. “...They didn’t.”

Clark stared at Lex.

Lex stared back at him.

Clark crossed his arms.

“What _exactly_ did they say?” he asked Lex.

“They…” Lex looked uneasy now, and unsure. “...said that they were heading out, that they would be sure to stock up on supplies, and not to burn the house down while they were away.”

Clark stared at him, aghast.

Lex frowned at him.

“I’m not a pyromaniac,” Lex informed Clark testily, crossing his arms. “I don’t know why they even said that.”

“I do,” Clark said, feeling a little bit panicked now. “They’re away for the weekend.”

Lex looked at him like he was out of his flipping mind. “What?”

Clark leaned back against the counter. “They left,” he told Lex faintly. “For the weekend. They both left.” His parents only said things like ‘don’t burn the house down’ or ‘don’t go tipping any of the cows over’ if they were going to be away for a whole day, or more.

...Then Clark realized what he’d just said, it really hit him what had just happened, and he started to get angry. _Really_ angry.

“They went to that organic farming association meet-up,” Clark told Lex, through clenched teeth.

“...What’s wrong?” Lex asked him, almost warily.

"My parents said they weren’t going to do that,” Clark told him, turning around and yanking the soup pot off of the stove. “Because they would’ve both had to go, and that would have left me all alone in the house for an entire weekend,” he told Lex, mad as hell now. He slammed the pot down on the counter, and turned back to him. “Apparently, I’m not responsible enough to be left alone in the house, unless I’m too busy babysitting _you_ ,” Clark gritted out, and how was that even okay? Or make any sense at all? They didn’t trust Lex, but they’d left Clark _alone_ with him? For an _entire weekend?!_

“-- _Excuse_ me?” he heard Lex say, sounding completely offended, and when he looked up, he met Lex’s narrow-eyed glare. “I don’t need ‘looking after’,” Lex informed him, getting to his feet and standing up straight and tall. “I am _perfectly capable_ of taking care of myself,” he informed Clark tersely. “I’ve been doing it for _years_.”

“Maybe you are,” though Clark kind of doubted that at this point, “But they don’t leave me alone at home, ever! One of them always stays, or I end up sleeping over at Pete’s house where his parents can keep an eye on us both,” Clark told him unthinkingly. “--You know,” Clark said, eyeing him, “ _Adult_ supervision?”

“I’m an adult,” Lex told him, then paused. “Technically,” he added, with a grimace.

Clark stared at him.

“ _‘Technically’?_ ” Clark repeated. “How old are you?” he asked incredulously.

Lex out-and-out scowled at him.

“I’m twenty-one,” he was told. “Thus, technically an adult.” He grimaced. “It’s not like turning twenty-one is some magical event, where a switch flips inside a person’s head and suddenly they’re completely mature and all grown-up,” Lex groused at him. “It’s not like I feel any different now than I did at twenty. No-one does.” He frowned. “They can’t possibly have left me alone with you on purpose.” He looked off to the side. “I certainly can’t imagine _anyone_ considering me a proper supervisor of, well, _anyone’s_ good behavior,” Lex said almost derisively, as he shoved his hands into his pants pockets.

“...Why?” Clark asked him, suspiciously, because he very much doubted Lex’s answer was going to be ‘because I’m harmlessly insane. Mostly.’

“Because I have a reputation,” Lex told him, and he sounded almost annoyed that his ‘reputation’ hadn’t been taken into account in Clark’s parents’ decision. At Clark’s stare, he rocked back on his heels, looking frustrated, and said, “I’m the ‘prince of Metropolis’,” then looked even more frustrated at Clark’s blank look and continued complete lack of comprehension. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I used to get into?”

“‘Used to’?” Clark echoed.

Lex opened his mouth, and he looked about to object to something. Then he shut his mouth, grimaced again, drew in a long breath through his nose, and said, slowly, as if he were talking to a very small child, “Your parents left you at home, alone, unsupervised by anyone else but _me_. Thus, _effectively unsupervised_.” His eyes narrowed, and he tapped his chest with his fingers. “ _I_ know how to **party** ,” he informed Clark. “‘Burning down the house’ should be the absolute _least_ of their worries.”

“We aren’t having a _party_ ,” Clark said, aghast. Who the hell would they even invite. Everyone was--

And at that thought, Clark choked.

“Of course we aren’t!” Lex said. “That’s not the point!”

Clark shook himself. “Then what _is_ the point?” he said, tonelessly.

Lex looked at him like he was crazy for missing it. He swung out his arm, like he was gesturing at everything that could go wrong at once, and said:

“ _\-- **They** don’t know that!_ ”

Clark stared at him.

Then he scrubbed at his face with his palms.

Lex scowled at him. “Do you have _any_ idea how much of a bad influence I am?”

Clark couldn’t help it. He began to laugh hysterically.

“--It’s not funny!” Lex insisted hotly, stomping towards him.

And then Lex reached past him and turned off all the burners on the stove.

When Clark looked down at him incredulously, Lex said, “The pots were beginning to boil over-- _stop that!_ It isn’t funny!” he insisted, as Clark started laughing again.

“And you people think _I’m_ insane,” Lex muttered with a great deal of irritation, as he shouldered Clark out of the way and started moving pots off of the stove and onto potholders on the countertop. Clark let him.

And they both startled as Lex put down the final pot with a soft thump.

They turned in unison, then glanced at each other. Then they made their way towards the front window.

Clark pulled the curtain aside a bit. They both peered out, to see the beat up old pickup truck come to a complete halt next to Lex’s own car.

Clark dropped the curtain, blinking, as he straightened. He’d been so sure, and so angry before, at basically having been abandoned at home, and now… his chest sort of felt weird, and he didn’t know _what_ to think.

“Aha!” Lex said, raising a finger in the air for the moment, like he was making a point. “You see? I was right!” he informed Clark with what looked like a genuine smile.

“Right about what?” Clark asked him, staring.

“They don’t trust me at all,” he told Clark almost smugly, still smiling, as though he’d won a prize of some sort.

Clark eyed him askance. “...And you’re _happy_ about this?” he couldn’t help but ask.

Lex looked up at him like he didn’t entirely understand the question. “Well, yes?”

“Why?” Clark asked him, mystified, if not a little weirded out.

“Because I was right,” Lex told him matter-of-factly, as Clark’s parents unlocked the front door of the house and stepped inside.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
